Anthropology Updates

Anthropology Report

With summer here, thinking about developing the original purpose of anthropology report: to deliver frequent (daily?) updates from anthropology blogs and news, anthropology-related announcements, and other items that can be shared.

Why is there genetic variation in anciently adaptive traits?, Ken Weiss
Our traits are due to many interacting factors. In a way, such redundancy and complexity protects species from being too vulnerable to harmful mutations (or unexpected environments). If, thinking Mendelishly, we expect otherwise, or hope for simplicity, we are deluding ourselves. We may talk ‘evolution’ but are not thinking clearly enough about it.

Book Review–Freedom in Entangled Worlds, by Eben Kirksey, Matt Thompson
In Freedom in Entangled Worlds: West Papua and the Architecture of Global Power, the first book by anthropologist Eben Kirksey, Mellon Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, the reader is presented with a history of the merdeka movement in West Papua. This tale of magic, nationalism, and human rights in an “out of the way place” unfolds on a global stage as the author treks from the secret hideouts of guerilla fighters in the highland bush country to the seat of corporate power at BP headquarters in London. Along the way we get a master class in how an academic activist might balance post-structural theory with the kinds of strong knowledge claims that may influence political decision makers.

How much does publishing really cost? The Long Answer, Christopher Kelty
Scholarly publishing is expensive for a bunch of bad reasons and a few good reasons. The amount we as scholars (and our libraries or institutions) should pay should correspond to the cost of the good reasons. There are two lessons to learn from this: 1) TINSTAAFL. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody somewhere has to bear these costs, whether it is the current publishers, the new breed of OA publishers, universities and libraries or we scholars ourselves… it’s not going away; but more importantly 2) We are currently paying the costs that correspond to the much more expensive Bad Reasons, and if we just stopped doing that, we’d have money left over for beer.

AN Proposals on Power Due June 15, Amy Goldenberg
In honor of this year’s national election, Anthropology News invites proposals for a series on power. While stemming from the US elections, this series will go beyond politics and power. AN seeks proposals that may include, but are not limited to, explorations on power in terms of: governance; policy development; institutional power; activism; language; inequality; influence; gender; economic development; colonialism and imperialism; and in specific contexts, such as at the local, state, national, and international levels. Proposals may also focus on specific empowered or disempowered groups, or investigate interpersonal dimensions of power, such as among family, colleagues and community members.

What gay sounds like: The linguistics of LGBTQ communities, Tricia Bobeda
William Leap, an anthropology professor at American University in Washington, D.C., coined the term ‘Lavender Linguistics’ to describe the study of language used by the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities.

Why do we hurry to wait?, Krystal D’Costa
Waiting is the period we endure until the expected happens. We wait for all sorts of things: the bus, dinner, colleagues who are late for a meeting, the rain to stop, etc. Waiting is built into our social lives. And our waiting behavior is influenced by a fair number of variables. There isn’t a prescribed method for waiting, and yet waiting in certain contexts tends toward a similar pattern of group impatience leading to aggressive strategies that are meant to better position the waiting individual for the event.

Journal of Business Anthropology
The Journal of Business Anthropology is an Open Access journal which publishes the results of anthropological and related research in business organizations and business situations of all kinds.

Call for Papers Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 34
Research in Economic Anthropology (REA) is a peer-reviewed book series focusing on the broad anthropological investigation of economy and culture/society. This includes both contemporary sociocultural (“ethnographic”) and archaeological approaches, as well as theoretical and review essays. REA was first published in 1978 by JAI Press and edited by George Dalton. The next editor was Barry Isaac, who kept the series on track for nearly 20 years. Elsevier eventually acquired REA, and the editorial team of Norbert Dannhaeuser and Cynthia Werner handled it for most of the period of that company’s ownership. Since 2005 the series has been edited by Donald C. Wood, and it is now published by Emerald Group, Ltd.

Manuscripts dealing with the anthropological study of intersections between culture/society and the economy/economics are now being sought for Volume 34 of REA, scheduled for publication in 2014. Although a broad range of articles and essays can be accepted for consideration, manuscripts based on original empirical research (ethnographic or archaeological case studies) will generally be preferred.

In principle, submissions should be under 10,000 words and need to be sent to the editor electronically as MS Word files. Initial submissions should also be double-spaced, and all figures and tables (with captions) need to be included in the document, preferably near the location where the author would like them to appear. An abstract of about 100 words is also needed, and all works cited should be included in a references section at the end. Self-identification should be avoided if possible.